Episode Review - Steel Cold Heart
Review and Media by Stu

Episode #5 - Steel Cold Heart
Original Airdate - January 13, 2001
Git Hoskins, a Human Revolutionary who has unusual powers due to being experimented on by the High Evolutionary, steals a canister Spidey and Shayne befriend X-51, a Machine Man who has become sentient and no longer wants to serve the High Evolutionary. X-51 is hunted by the Knights of Wundagore and the Human Revolutionaries, who want to exchange him for one of their own held prisoners. Spidey learns that the exchange is a double-cross and prevents it, and X-51 joins the revolutionary forces.

Credits
Story By: Roger Slifer, Will Meugniot
Written By: Roger Slifer
Directed By: Patrick Archibald

Review:
This episode introduces X51, one of the The High Evolutionary's Machine Men who somehow managed to acquire sentience and intelligence, making it more than simply a robot. The episodes itself is pretty dull by most standards, once again Spidey and the humans battle The Beastials, and little Shane somehow manages to get caught in the middle of it all.

The design for X51, and just all robots in general here, suffer from a poor choice of colour. Much like Apocalypse in X-Men: The Animated Series, the choice of light blue and light purple simply don't mesh well. Add that these things are some of the most generic robots ever seen , and well, it's anotehr strike against this show. It's a shame too, for a cheap looking show like this, Spider-Man himself actually moves pretty well. He's constantly flipping, swinging and crawling and the majority of the time! He moves a lot more gracefully than he did in Spider-Man: The Animated Series ...

The webbing effects are also damn cool, and remind me of some of the cooler things The Scarlet Spider did with his webbing in the comic books. Unfortunately, there appears to be some rather odd batarang rip-offs here and it simply doesn't fit Spider-Man. I've said this a lot. but this series really seems like a "Spider-Man in name only" kinda situatio, and he's too interesting a character to be messed around with too much.

Whilst it's hard to tell, X51 appears to be voiced by none other than Robert Hayes, Iron Man himself! It's always a treat to hear Hayes, because he's so damn good when it comes to voice acting. Not a brilliant episode, unfortunately, and the series seems to be falling into the "bad guy of the week" rut. Not a good sign so early.

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